Minneapolis ? Nick Punto’s voice was hoarse and he strained to describe how the Minnesota Twins have rallied from seven games down in less than a month to push the AL Central race to the final day.

“It’s been Game 7 for the last two weeks,” Punto croaked.

And, thanks in large part to Michael Cuddyer, for one more day.

Cuddyer hit a solo home run in the eighth inning, lifting the Twins to a thrilling 5-4 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Saturday that moved them into a tie with first-place Detroit.

“This is what it’s all about,” Cuddyer said. “When you break spring training, you hope to experience this. All 162 games are going to count. You can’t go wrong with that.”

The Tigers lost 5-1 to the Chicago White Sox. Today is the final day of the regular season.

Joe Mauer delivered his biggest hit in an MVP-caliber season, a two-out single off Cy Young candidate Zack Greinke that broke a scoreless tie in the sixth. Delmon Young added a three-run double later in the inning for a 4-0 lead.

After the Twins bullpen let the Royals tie it, Cuddyer hit his 31st homer of the season off Dusty Hughes (0-2).

Greinke has been on an impressive tear, entering the game with a 0.43 ERA over his previous six starts.

He didn’t allow a hit through three innings, but was outpitched by Nick Blackburn, who was perfect through four innings and allowed two runs on four hits in seven innings.

“I think what happened was, they did such a bad job of hitting my fastball the first five innings, that I started to think that they weren’t going to hit it,” Greinke said. “And then that last inning, Mauer hit a fastball. Kubel hit a fastball. Delmon Young hit a fastball. Just maybe got a little overconfident with it.”